The album of Ariel #422

[ebb]

Foam at the mouth.*
Yeah, it's been known for decades that 2-part urethane foam is lethal stuff. I have known and known about guys who've died using and installing urethane foam. By direct inhalation and by cancer. It's lethal when you are pouring it, when it off-gases after it cures, and when it catches fire. It's not true closed cell, it's unstable and can disintegrate if liquids get in to the space where it lurks. And the liquids WILL get in. Even if it supposedly is completely isolated from the accomodation you wouldn't trust it. It should never be installed in a closed living space. Like a boat.

As pointed out by the guys on the above forum, the DIY pour-in-place market is miniscule. Maybe that's why we never have had an alternative. Not enough dead bodies. You never trust who it is that's making this stuff. Or their MSDS. Though to be fair to them: if they told you how evil their product was, you probably wouldn't buy it, and profit is really what it's all about.

Those unsinkable ETAP boats bother me on this score.

Probably should research the synthetic foam rubbers and readymade poly foams we are intending to use for their 'blowing agents'.
CFC's are still screwing up the planet. Dow and Dupont just dance around creating new ones not covered by legislation. Ozone and Hypoallergenic and Planet are words too pussy for these guys. Some foams are beginning to be made using inert gases like CO2.
Sweet Styrene is a carcinogen and toxin.
Hot wiring styrofoam can produce toxic fumes. So can sanding. And the sanding dust is also hazardous. Burning this highly inflamable stuff creates bad fumes too. The jury will always be out on these products: It's worth while considering the possible migration of nasty chemicals out of these foams.

Seems to me there should be a foam-in-place EPOXY by now.
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*Kurt, sorry for the rant in your space here! In the last year 3 people I've known have died from cancer. At this moment three more connected with the estate here are fighting cancer also: one shrinking visibly is being fitted today with a chemo bag to wear. Another is battling leukemia, another prostate.

[mrgnstrn]

Kurt

Your flotation project got me thinking...

As I recall, you are planning on putting in just enough extra flotation to basically float the boat at it's gunwales. Basically, this is mostly a submerged body. So you may want to consider a few things:

VCG, VCB: Vertical center of bouyancy and V.C. of gavity. You will want to make sure that the VCB is above the VCG, otherwise your boat will be more stable upside down than right side up. (note, this is necessary only because you are now a submerged body, like a submarine. Once you are not a submerged body, you can rely on form stability to help keep you upright)

LCG, LCB: Longitudinal center of bouyancy and L.C. of gavity. This one would be a bigger concern to me. If these two don't line up on top of each other, your boat will float with the bow skyward and stern 26' below the surface. (or vice versa). How are you going to recover from that, even after you fix the hole? It's not like you can bail out the stern....it's totally submerged.

Lateral CG and CB may also be a concern, but if you put approximately equal flotation on port as starboard, you might be able to deem yourself OK.


Also, you might want to think through the repair and recovery process. OK, you have hit a submerged container, put a 10" gash in the leading edge of the keel, quickly taken on enough water to sink the boat, but the flotation has kept the boat from becoming a coral reef project.
Now what?
How do I repair the problem? Do I need to careen the boat way over to reach the hole to repair/patch it? Can I do it all underwater? After I have repaired the hull, how do I get the water out? Are all the gunwales above the water, can I bail, can I shut the cockpit scuppers to keep from filling back up the cockpit? is water draining into the cabin, cockpit lockers from the cockpit? if the lockers are sealed, how do I drain them?

What this led me to believe is that you need to have some temporary flotation bags to enhance the flotation for recovery.

Don't get me wrong, your passive flotation solution is very elegant. Always there, don't have to worry about it not working, no moving parts to fail at the wrong time. And these inflatable bags may be unsuitable for permantent installation and use in an emergency.

But after things have calmed down, you may need to pull these bags out to lift up the bow to fix the hole, or stern to fix a rudder problem, or to lift the gunwales well clear of the waterline for bailing. And if you are crafty, you could make them blow up with those handy sized CO2 cartridges they use on lifevests. Or the similar sized cartridges they use for air-guns. And you can store a lot of them for a long time, until needed. That way if you need to inflate and deflate it a couple of times for all the necessary recovery operations, you can.

food for thought.

________________

oh, and just thought about this.....Don't you also own "Nemisis" up on Maryland? Why not trial sink that boat instead of you beloved Katie Marie......?
Then give the hull to Tim Lackey and have him do something amazing out of it....Like make it fly or something!
(clarification, Lackey is a true genius and artist with a boat hull. Nothing else implied herein)
________________

[CapnK]

Thanks for the input Keith - I can tell you have put plenty of thought into it. I hope that I can address your thoughts succinctly here. Any failure to do so can be attributed to the fact that I am 3 beers into a Friday night at this point.

I am shooting for a better than "decks awash" scenario. Ideally, she'll float at or above the same level as the cabin-side shelves/the stringer against the hull. All, or at least 95%+, of my flotation - discounting sealed cockpit lockers and lazarette - will be below this level. (Cockpit/lazzy will be slightly above that, it's upper few inches.) My thinking there is that as soon as the flotation goes under, it's pushing *up*. Hopefully, the push up will counteract the 'pull down' enough to stop the boat with the decks *above* being awash. I am seeking to put enough foam in to counter sinking, if barely; any extra flotation over and beyond that from sealed lockers will supplant that bare minimum, ideally keeping the deck at least 10" above the water surface.

BUT... (there's always one of those, right? ) -

Sinking that deep is an absolute worst case survival situation, pure and simple, something that should only happen if 'disaster-with-a-capital-D' strikes, and is wearing a t-shirt with my name on it in bold letters. At that point, I'll be glad to just not be swimming to the nearest continent or other landmass.

if it comes to that, I will have to wait until conditions calm enough to deal with pumping out a very flooded boat, but I *will* be able to wait _and_ have all my stores available for survival and repair, both of which seem important.

Would that be fun? Not at all, no way, no how. But to my mind it beats worrying about, say, the liferaft tubes popping for {pick a reason}.

Basically the entire front half of the boat (everywhere ahead of the midships taper), anywhere a penetration can be affected, will be inside of one locker or another. The ideal there is to contain any flooding to just one or two lockers, the same as crash bulkheads do on a ship. This would mean that although the hull was breached, it won't flood - just those lockers will. Also, at the same time, I have *significantly* reduced the amount of interior space which could be flooded if that Disaster were to happen. Less water inside means less water available to be sinking the boat, and also less water to be sloshing around and upsetting the CG/CB balance.

As far as CG/CB - not being a N.A., and not owning one , I _am_ having to kind of eyeball-engineer some of this. You are correct that I am seeking to balance the amount of flotation side-to-side. I am also doing the same fore-and-aft, with the cockpit lockers and lazzy all being independent from each other and seal-able, just like the forward lockers. Under the cockpit sole will also be another area sealed from air/water, providing flotation.

So my strategery is first and most importantly prevention of the possibility of flooding, and second, staying afloat however long it takes to survive and repair if flooding does happen.

Repair strategy is something which will be under active consideration up until I leave shore. I do plan to carry a bit-n-brace, lots of appropriately long fasteners, and plenty of underwater-setting epoxy. There will be some pieces of wood aboard which will serve a secondary purpose as large-hole-patchers if need be.

It would be *really nice* to have a bag or two to provide extra lift where/when needed. I will take that idea into serious consideration. If the boat is capable of floating on its own, then the bags could be pumped up manually, when needed. A bag that could be used that way wouldn't need a bottle reservoir, valves, etc etc...

I sold "Nemesis" a long time ago, and sadly, am unsure of her fate. I do hope she is being fixed up, or has been already, and is under sail during the warm months up on the Chessy. Even if that means she doesn't get to feel the tender ministrations of the Plastic Classic Wizard, aka Mr. Lackey.

Thanks again, I really appreciate the discussion. As always, feel free to poke holes in my thinking - I'd much rather find out I was wrong or off in my thinking before I find out 'out there'.

[CapnK]

I've been wanting to try stripping the old original latex paint from the hull and overhead prior to grinding - seeking less noise, less mess, maybe even less effort. Bought a product called "Citristrip" from WalMart, $10.77 for a quart of orange colored paste. It is "Safe for indoor use, no harsh fumes, strips multiple layers", is non-caustic (tho' they do recommend using gloves with it), and is supposedly biodegradable. Sounds safe for a liveaboard, right?

Well, it works - and good. Put a layer on a test area, waited 30-40 minutes, and the paint came off very easily. Further testing has shown that scraping, then using a plastic scrubby brush, finishing with a water-wetted rag removes the old paint pretty darn easily. It's not *all* gone, but now sanding to a good substrate should take a lot less time, with the other benefits of less grinding.

Still working on application. I tried a foam brush, but that melted - not immediately, but fairly quick, surprisingly for what would otherwise seem to be a benign substance. I think a cheap china bristle brush would work well, maybe even a homemade thing plastic squeegy, for quickly covering large areas. 1/8" thickness of wet paste seems to produce the best results. If it gets too dry before scraping, just put a little more paste on and wait a few minutes, it'll soften right back up.

I think as soon as it gets back up into the 60's on a regular basis, I am going to move me, dogs, and most stuff off of the boat for a week or two, during which time I will get down and dirty laying in the new arrangement. I am doing up some computer drawings of what I have been thinking, sort of a visual plan and perspective view. I'll post those when I get them done.

Still trying to figure out what is the best adhesive for bonding the foam to the hull. Based on how well the paint has gripped the glass for 40 years, I may well use a latex adhesive, if I can find one which will grab the foam as well. I could use 42/5200, but am hoping to find something which won't grip *quite* that much. Ideal would be something which expanded just a teensy bit, to fill in gaps where condensation could form. The search continues...

I can't wait to get her sailing again...

[CapnK]

A look at what the WC will be like. Though the opening into it looks tiny, it is 14-16" wide. I'm not sure how I am going to handle a door. Note the 'flare' in the wall at the bottom of the companionway - it'll be 5" wide or so, allows for more shoulder room inside the WC space when seated, and gives an easy-to-reach high step for when a hatchboard is in place in the companionway...

[ebb]

Fantastic Kurt, Brave man!
Getting the head out of the v-berth is downright heroic!
Perfect for the wet gear, too. But, do you NEED a door? How bout just a curtain or an accordian door that folds and hangs from a bar.

What happens if you turn the doorway into the cabin a bit - a little or a lot??? Know what I mean? You might set the galley sink an inch or two further outboard and use vertical space gained to turn the doorway off the 90 degrees? Trying to be helpful, ya know.

[mbd]

Companionway steps on the wall of the head? Nice outside the box thinking. So, no more removable steps? Which way is the head going to be oriented? Excepting the steps on the WC wall, maybe a curtain could be used there as well? Might not be a bad thing to be able to vent out the companionway...

While you're redoing things, maybe you could move the companionway entry off center to make more room for the head? That's semi tongue-in-cheek, but it would make more room... I love following the progress of you guys who actually get things done on your boats.